


Nine-tenths of the Law

by Zara_Zee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brotherly Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hoodoo, Vodou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 19:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20644409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zara_Zee/pseuds/Zara_Zee
Summary: Sam’s got demon blood in him; a disease pumping through his veins. He can never rip it out or scrub it clean and after the fiasco with the rugaru, he no longer believes he can make somethinggoodout of it either. A hunt down in New Orleans opens up a whole new world of possibilities and Sam figures if he’s smart; if he takes action early enough; if he makes the right deals; then maybe he can find abearablealternative to becoming a creature of evil.Written for 2019 Summergen for Verucasalt123's prompt: "One hundred miles an hour on a dirt road..."





	Nine-tenths of the Law

**Author's Note:**

  * For [verucasalt123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verucasalt123/gifts).

> For fun, not profit. 
> 
> *Diverges from canon at episode 4.04, _Metamorphosis_

** _Now_ **

_October 1st 2008, Delacroix, Louisiana._

Dean’s doing a hundred miles an hour on a dirt road. His hands are slippery on the steering wheel, his tee-shirt is plastered to his back and he’d open the window if he thought it would make any difference, but it’s 89F degrees today and the humidity levels are at 90%. 

Dean glances at the empty passenger seat beside him and shouts obscenities into the ether, smacking his hands down on the wheel. The car fish tails and Dean overcorrects, nearly sends Baby spinning into the bayou that runs beside the road. He pulls up and takes a deep breath, resting his forehead on the steering wheel and trying to steady the staccato beating of his heart.

“Fuck,” he whispers to himself. “What the hell are you doing, Sammy?”

The scary thing is, he’s got pretty good idea what his baby brother’s up to.

Even scarier, he knows what drove him to it.

_If I didn’t know you, I would want to hunt you. And so would other hunters._

Dean gets Baby back on the road and resumes his journey, putting his foot down once more and sending dust clouding up behind him in his wake.

He wonders if he’s already too late.

** _Then_ **

_Late September 2008, Shreveport, Louisiana_

Dean has no destination in mind when they leave Carthage, mostly just _away from Carthage_. In the back of his mind he’s aware that he doesn’t want to go anywhere near Kansas, not after the recent revelations about the Campbell family and his Mom’s demon deal. And there’s also a little voice inside his head that thinks he should avoid going west, because that road leads to California and Stanford and Sam didn’t just say he was done using his powers, he said he was done with _everything_ and Dean’s not entirely sure what that means. 

So Dean closes his eyes and lets his instinct; his road-sense; govern him and finds himself driving south, toward the coast.

Six hours of Black Sabbath and silence later, they pull into a no-tell, motel in Shreveport and Dean doesn’t even argue when Sam claims first shower.

When Sam’s done, he curls up on the Queen furthest away from the door with his laptop and Dean pauses at the end of the bed before he heads into the bathroom, but can’t think of a damn thing to say.

The water pressure isn’t bad and the water stays hot long enough for him to scrub the smell of barbecued long pig from his skin and hair.

He’s out of the bathroom wearing sweats and a plain grey tee, towelling his hair dry, when Sam finally speaks.

“Bobby called while you were in the shower; wanted to know if we could check out a possible werewolf attack in Delacroix.”

Dean sighs softly and wonders at the sixth sense that put his wheels on the road to Louisiana earlier in the day.

“You tell him we’d swing by?”

Sam nods.

Dean searches for socks, finds a pair that don’t smell too bad. He sits on the bed to put them on. “Chinese okay?” he asks.

Sam bites back a laugh and Dean looks up, startled.

“Werewolves of London?” Sam says.

Dean rolls his eyes, but he’s suddenly lighter than he’s been in days.

Their contact is Eloise Barnett, who works for the St Bernard Parish Coroner’s Office. Bobby texts Dean and tells him to bring her a box of beignets, which he does happily.

Eloise says that she shouldn’t really and pats at her waistline, but does anyway, getting almost as much sugar on her lips as Dean does. In between bites she tells them that when she saw in the report that Marie Martinez’s heart had been torn from her chest, she got on the blower to Bobby Singer right away.

She pats her steel-grey bun and blushes when she says Bobby’s name and Dean’s smile is more of a grimace. He really doesn’t want to know how they know each other.

Eloise gets them in to see the body when the coroner goes on his morning break, and it looks like a stock-standard werewolf kill to Dean.

Eloise gives them Marie’s address and tells them that she lived alone, which turns out not to be entirely true. 

Marie’s white clapboard fishing cottage is right on the edge of the bayou in Delacroix and it’s raised up on stilts—a common modification after the Katrina storm-surge-and-flood that almost wiped the area off the map in ’05. Sam and Dean are greeted enthusiastically at the door by two mewing tabby cats. Marie’s sister Toni is there to feed the cats and give them cuddles and she’s far less enthusiastic about two strange men turning up on the doorstep.

Sam gives her their standard line about being from animal control, looking for information about the wild dog attack. They show her the appropriate badges and Toni’s red-rimmed eyes flash briefly with derision.

“My sister weren’t attacked inside her house,” Toni drawls, lifting her chin.

“No ma’am,” Sam replies. “But then, things being what they are, we’re not entirely sure this was strictly an animal attack.”

Before Dean can say, _what the hell, Sam_, his brother’s eyes move slowly and deliberately to Toni’s forearm, where there’s a black tattoo from her inner-wrist to her elbow, with a heart-shape roughly in the middle, and lots of swirly bits coming down from it. Dean frowns. There’s something familiar about the design, but he can’t quite place it.

“Hunters,” Toni says, her tone laced with hostility.

Dean’s eyes dart back up to her face in time to catch her epic scowl.

“We don’t need your kind here,” she adds.

“If something’s killing people around here,” Sam stands his ground.

“_We’ll_ take care of it,” Toni insists and slams the door in their faces.

Dean turns to Sam. “What did I miss?”

Sam sighs. “The tattoo on her arm? It was a veve. I’ll have to look up whose symbol, but definitely a veve,” he bites at his bottom lip. “The house has strong warding too. Can you feel it?”

Dean shakes his head.

“I can feel it,” Sam admits. “I don’t think we could get inside the house without an invitation.”

“A veve. Strong warding. Are you saying…vodou?”

Sam nods. “Yeah. I think so.”

They make their way back to the car and once they’re inside Dean says, “So is it even a werewolf? Or are we talking human sacrifice here?”

Sam’s lips thin. “You know as well as I do that human sacrifice isn’t part of any recognized Vodou ritual or ceremony. Animal sacrifice, sure. And they _do_ have blood rituals; you know how powerful blood is; how often it’s required in the rituals that we do; but that’s blood that’s freely given. So no, unless a vodouisant has gone completely off the reservation, so to speak, I don’t think we’re looking at human sacrifice here.”

Dean rubs a hand across the back of his neck. It’s been a few years since he last had a hunt involving vodou. Sure, they’ve come across a hint of it here and there, and once or twice some pretty serious spells involving Deep South hoodoo, but the last time he’d been involved in any genuine bona fide vodou was just before he’d picked Sam up from Stanford. 

Dad had sent him to New Orleans to look into reports of revenants in the wake of Katrina. Of course, it had turned out to be a lot more complicated than that, vodouisants who’d survived some injuries that usually wouldn’t be compatible with life, thanks to the spirits who were riding them at the time. And Dean only knows that much because he’d gotten close to a detective in the NOPD who had connections in the vodou community. The whole thing got smoothed over without any real input from Dean, but he’d stuck around for a while anyway, to help out with the post-Katrina clean-up. And to fool around a little with Detective Gina LaSalle.

Dean puts Baby into drive and pulls away from the late Marie Martinez’s cottage.

“Erzulie Freda,” Sam says, looking at his phone.

“Gesundheit,” Dean quips.

Sam frowns at him.

“The veve. It’s Erzulie Freda’s symbol. Erzulie Freda is the rada loa of beauty, dreams, hopes and aspirations.”

Dean nods. “So. The victim’s sister is into Vodou. And she doesn’t want our help.”

Sam’s brow furrows thoughtfully. “Maybe she doesn’t _need_ our help. That warding was powerful. Maybe the vodou community _can_ deal with this.”

“Maybe,” Dean says. “And maybe they have no idea how to kill a werewolf. Maybe they’ll get themselves killed, or worse. Throw in some deep-south hoodoo and maybe everything gets real messy, real fast.”

Sam’s lips twist. “Yeah. Still…if the vodou community’s involved,” he trails off thoughtfully. “Maybe we should…talk to someone? You know, like a chief priestess or something? Let them know we’re working the case, just as a professional courtesy?”

Dean snorts. “Yeah, it’ll be a lot easier for us to do our job if the vodouisants aren’t working against us.”

Sam nods, teething tugging at his bottom lip. “I don’t suppose vodou priestesses list themselves in the phone book? That’d be too easy.”

Dean shrugs. “No clue. But I know someone who’s got an in with the community.”

A black Ford utility slides into the bay beside them in the parking lot of the New Orleans Public Library. Sam and Dean are standing side-by-side, leaning against the impala’s trunk and Sam watches as a tall woman in a dark-grey well-tailored pant-suit climbs out of the Ford’s driver’s seat and heads toward them. She moves with easy confidence and in the thirty seconds it takes him to form his first impression, Sam decides that this woman is competent and worthy of his respect. 

“Hey, Gina,” Dean steps forward and shakes her hand. “Good to see you again.”

“You too,” Gina says. Her eyes flick across to Sam and she offers him her hand. “Nice to meet you…?”

“Sam,” he says as they shake hands.

“Sorry,” Dean says. “Sam, Detective Gina LaSalle. Gina, this is my brother Sam.”

“Brother?” Gina says. “The one who quit the family business to go to Stanford?”

“Yeah,” Sam swallows. “Didn’t work out.”

Dean shoots Gina a cease and desist look and Sam is grateful.

“How about you, Gina?” Dean asks. “Anything new in your life?”

“Got promoted. We lost a lot of officers after Katrina. It’s been a mess,” she pauses and looks at Dean searchingly. “Got engaged too.”

Dean beams. “Congratulations. That’s awesome.”

Gina smiles and relaxes a little.

“So,” she says. “I know you boys ain’t here to hunt ‘gators. You got something you wanna fill me in on?”

Dean nods, solemnly. “Got a report about a werewolf kill down in Delacroix. We checked it out and it looks legit.”

Gina inclines her head. “Are you sure it’s a werewolf? Not a loup garou?”

Sam purses his lips at that. “There’s a difference?”

Gina’s expression is amused. “Oh yeah. If it’s a loup garou, you better leave it to _Mambo_ Babette and her people.”

Sam shares a significant look with his brother. “That’s kind of why we wanted to talk to you,” Sam says. “Dean thought you might be able to help us contact the local vodou community. We wanted to talk to them, see if they know anything we should know about,” he shrugs. “Let them know we’re here working a case.”

Gina chuckles. “I’ll make a call. Chances are good that _Maman_ Babette already knows you’re here. Not sure if she’ll be willing to tell you anything; hunters of your sort don’t exactly have a good reputation in these parts. But if nothing else, paying your respects to the local high priestess would be a good start; seeing as how y’all are in her territory.”

The house is the sort of two-story terrace-style clapboard-sided house that you see in tourist brochures for the French quarter. It’s been painted a cheerful orange color and has white shutters on the windows and white iron lattice work dripping from the eaves and around the balconies. There are wide steps leading up to the front door and Sam would never in a million years suspect that a powerful vodou priestess lived in the friendly-looking house if not for that fact that he can’t make himself walk up the front steps. _Something_ is pushing against him and Dean is half way up the stairs before he even realizes that Sam isn’t beside him.

“Sammy?” Dean says half turning and looking at Sam quizzically.

Sam almost breaks out in a sweat trying to put his foot on the bottom step.

The door opens and a thirty-something man with long dreadlocks and a light beard fixes Sam with a hard look.

“Well now,” he says. “This is interesting,” he mutters something too low for Sam to hear and waves a hand. The pressure on Sam eases and he’s able to make his way up the steps to the front porch.

“Sam and Dean Winchester,” the man says looking at them each in turn. “I’m Henri. You’re here to see my sister. Come on in.”

He holds the door open wide.

Dean glances at Sam, rubs a hand across his chin and then steps inside. Sam tries to follow him, but can’t, which causes Henri to _hmm_ and peer at Sam like he’s an interesting specimen. 

Sam gets a sudden whiff of tobacco with an underlying hint of sweetness and then something happens to Henri’s eyes, they seem to swim and swirl, and Sam is mesmerized; can’t look away. Henri reaches out and puts two fingers against Sam’s forehead.

“Oh _Bondye_,” Henri says, in a voice that’s much deeper, richer and more southern than it was earlier. “He bled into your mouth? Now that is just nasty.”

“Henri?” Sam says, although he’s 90% sure he’s no longer talking to the vodouisant.

Henri chuckles. “No, chile. You can call me Papa.”

Sam feels his lips twist and he isn’t surprised when _Papa_ chuckles again. “Too many daddy issues for that? Well alright. I have other names. You can call me Legba Atibon if you prefer.”

Sam nods mutely. He’d brushed up quickly on vodou lore while they were waiting to hear if _Mambo_ Babette would see them, so he understands what he’s being told. Henri is being ridden by the loa Papa Legba, aka Legba Atibon, the vodou spirit who serves as an intermediary between the loa and humanity. Papa Legba facilitates communication and understanding and it seems appropriate to Sam that the brother (and apparently right hand man) of the most senior _Mambo_ in New Orleans is ridden by a communications specialist.

“Sam,” says Papa Legba, “If you go right, there’s a side gate leads into the yard. I want you to go ‘round there and we’ll meet you on the back veranda.”

“Whoa,” Dean says from just inside the doorway. “If he’s going that way, so am I.”

Papa Legba nods and stands aside to let Dean pass. “Of course, chile.”

“What the hell, Sam?” Dean demands as they make their way into the back yard.

Sam shrugs. “I couldn’t get into the house. It’s warded, I’m guessing against demons, because Papa Legba specifically mentioned the demon blood.”

The back yard is bigger than Sam expected. There’s a wide covered veranda on which is a big round table that looks like it’s been set for a tea party. Henri is now sitting there, along with a woman who Sam assumes is his sister, _Maman_ Babette. At the bottom of the veranda and off to one side is a cobble-stone courtyard filled with statues ,all surrounded by brightly-colored flowers, candles, sweet treats, packets of cigarettes and bottles of rum.

“Shrines to the loa,” Sam murmurs to Dean as the walk past the carved stone effigies.

And that’s the last thing he says before abruptly passing out cold.

When Sam comes ‘round he’s lying on a divan on the back veranda and _Maman _Babette is waving some foul-smelling concoction under his nose. 

“Sammy?” he hears both fear and relief in his brother’s voice as he sits up coughing and spluttering. Dean’s strong arms wrap themselves around his shoulders. “What the hell, man?”

“I _tole_ you, Dean,” _Maman_ Babette says, “He _sensitive_. Too many loa be clamouring for the right to ride him.”

Dean glowers and his arms tighten around Sam. “Over my dead body is some vodou spirit possessing my brother!”

_Maman_ Babette sighs. “Might be better than what awaits him.”

Sam decides he’s sick of them talking about him like he’s not there so he whimpers a little and Dean’s instantly attentive, dutifully heading to the table to fetch Sam a glass of lemonade and a plate of sandwiches, when Sam mentions that he’s feeling lightheaded.

“So what awaits me?” he asks after Dean has gone.

_Maman_ Babette sighs. “You’re a perfect vessel, chile, built to host an archangel.”

Sam’s eyebrows rise. “_Built_?” he queries.

“You don’t believe in _Bondye_?”

“God? Yeah, I believe. But he’s been missing for a while now, so I doubt he had a hand in specifying my design.”

_Maman_ Babette smiles gently. “You been planned for generations, chile. It’s a long process. Your brother too, but he’s locked up tight. You, on the other hand, call to the spirits.”

Dean clears his throat loudly and steps forward, handing Sam a glass of lemonade and a plate filled with sandwiches, and then turning to face _Maman_ Babette

“No one’s ever accused me of being locked up tight before,” he tells her with a taut smile.

“Ain’t talkin’ ‘bout your body,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “You give that away free and easy, for sure. No, I’m talkin’ ‘bout your heart and your soul. You’re very selective ‘bout who you let into those.”

Dean actually blushes a little at her words, which Sam would usually find hilarious except he’s a little worried about her claim that he calls to spirits.

“So if the vodou spirits are all fighting over my brother,” Dean raises his chin, “then why did your warding keep him out?”

“We’re warded against demons,” _Maman_ Babette confirms Sam’s earlier suspicions. “Your brother’s been poisoned with demon blood and the warding’s sensitive enough to pick that up.”

Dean looks hard at her. “Poisoned?”

“Your brother was created for a _specific_ archangel, but it’s gonna take a few extra modifications to make him suitable.”

Dean frowns. “Why would _demons_ want him to be possessed by an _archangel_?”

Sam’s blood turns to ice in his veins.

“Not just _any_ archangel,” _Maman_ Babette says.

“Lucifer,” Sam concludes.

_Maman_ Babette inclines her head.

Dean puts the implications together almost as quickly as Sam and he turns to him, expression foreboding.

“What you’ve been doing with Ruby, it has to stop. She’s been _encouraging_ you to drink demon blood; telling you it’s a _good_ thing; and all the while she’s been trying to make you suitable for Lucifer!”

Sam begins to tremble. He really had believed he was doing good, using his powers to pull demons out of people without harming the person who was possessed. Now he sees it clearly for what it was; Ruby manipulating him. Ruby knowing just which button to push to get him to do something he would never willingly do otherwise. She knows he only agreed so that he could save people; she knows that’s the only argument that really worked on him.

“I’m done,” Sam promises. “I already said I was. And I meant it. But now…there’s nothing anyone could say to convince me to power up with go-juice.”

Dean’s look is approving, but _Maman_ Babette shakes her head.

“When the time comes,” she says, “they’ll just hold you down and force-feed you. Before that happens, you need to make yourself…_unsuitable_.”

Sam and Dean both frown.

“And how does he do that?” Dean demands.

_Maman_ Babette smiles widely. “You know what they say, Dean; possession is nine tenths of the law. Now,” she claps her hands. “I believe we have some huntin’ business to discuss?”

_Maman_ Babette and Henri agree with the Winchester’s assessment that they’re hunting a werewolf rather than a loup garou. Henri explains the difference—a werewolf is essentially a human with a blood-borne infection who is forced to change on the three days of the full moon and who has no control over the shift, or what they do while shifted. A loup garou, on the other hand, is someone with a magical gift. They have complete control over their shifting ability and they tend to be loyal and protective; not the type to rip someone’s heart out and eat it.

None-the-less, this creature is at least peripherally connected to the vodou community—_Maman_ Babette confirms that Marie Martinez was regularly ridden by the loa Simbi Andezo —and she insists that her brother will assist them with the hunt. 

Dean has gone to meet Detective LaSalle at the hospital to see if there are any records of patients who were bitten by a large vicious dog, but survived, and Sam is sitting beside Henri, in the passenger seat of his mud-splashed white Silverado on his way to see Marie’s sister, Toni, again. 

Toni’s eyes narrow as soon as she sees Sam on her doorstep, but she positively blanches when she sees Henri beside him. And promptly launches into an emphatic tirade in a language that Sam doesn’t understand, although he suspects it’s Creole. Henri’s responses appear to mollify her and she stops looking at Sam as if she’d like to roast him over a slow fire. Eventually she invites them in and offers them coffee; sweet, milky and strongly flavored with chicory; Sam savors it with his eyes closed and thinks he could definitely get used to it.

Toni doesn’t have anything useful to tell them though. She last saw Marie three days before she was found dead, and she last spoke with her the day before her body was discovered near the edge of the bayou by a local fisherman.

Marie had worked two jobs. She’d cleaned rooms at the Delacroix Lodge three mornings a week and she’d worked the till at The Last Stop Food Mart three afternoons a week. She’d been an active member of the Louisiana Wetlands and Coastal Protection Society. Marie hadn’t been worried about anything; hadn’t mentioned being watched or followed or anything out of the ordinary.

Toni’s eyes flick to Sam and she switches back to Creole. Henri shakes his head and says something that sounds faintly reproving and Toni sighs then swallows.

“Erzulie Freda doesn’t know anything,” Toni says, side-eyeing Sam. “She says Simbi Andezo ain’t talking to her, but she’ll keep trying.”

Sam nods. “Simbi, he’s a water loa, isn’t he?”

Toni gives Henri a long look and when he doesn’t intercede she sighs. “Simbi Andezo is the Creole name for Simbi En Deux Eaux; literally Simbi of the two waters. He’s the spirit of the bayous and mangrove swamps where fresh and salt waters merge,” she smiles, soft and sad. “The rivers, the ocean, the wetlands…Marie was passionate about them. Our Papa was a coastguard before he retired and his love of the sea ran in Marie’s veins too. She never wanted to be anywhere else, except her little cottage on the edge of the bayou,” Toni wrinkles her nose and Sam laughs.

“Not your scene, huh?”

Toni shrugs and takes a sip of her coffee. “I guess I’m a city girl at heart. I like nice things, not mud and mosquitoes.”

“Is that why you chose to serve Erzulie Freda?”

“The horse don’t choose the rider,” Henri intercedes. “The rider chooses the horse.”

“Horse?” Sam frowns.

“The person who the spirit chooses to ride.”

Sam isn’t sure he likes that piece of vodou terminology—it seems somehow demeaning to compare a human being to a horse, merely there to be ridden.

Something of what he’s thinking must be showing on his face, because Henri snorts.

“Christians,” Henri says scornfully. “Your demons, your angels, they’re like _parasites_, treat their hosts like empty vessels to be filled. Our loa, they work with us. They can’t ride us if they ain’t invited and if they no longer welcome, they have to leave.” 

“I’ve heard that Angels don’t enter a…host unless the host prays for it.” Sam says.

Henri raises an eyebrow. “Way I hear it, they can be awful hard to get out, once you let’em in.”

Sam makes a mental note to ask Dean to talk to Castiel about that—if he ever pops up on Dean’s radar again. And then refocuses on the matter at hand.

“Toni, I know this is hard to talk about, but do you have any theories at all, no matter how crazy they might sound, as to how your sister might have died?”

Toni shakes her head. “It wasn’t natural, I know that,” her eyes flick to Henri’s. “Not with her heart torn out. I did wonder about Hoodoo. Could someone be practicing black magic? Doing human sacrifices?”

“We ain’t felt nothin’ like that,” Henri says. “The Hunters are thinkin’ werewolf. _Mambo_ Babette thinks they could be right.”

Toni’s eyes widen. “Werewolf,” she says. “Not one of our loup garoux, but an _actual_ werewolf? Those are a thing?”

Sam nods. “Oh yeah. And most of the time they don’t even know they are one. They’ve been bitten by what they think is a wild dog, they get treated and they go on with their lives. And then, next full moon, they turn. They wake up naked somewhere the next day with no memory of the last twelve hours or so, scared out of their minds, because they think they’re going insane or that they got roofied or something.” 

Toni nods. “So I should look out for any of Marie’s friends or co-workers who’ve been missing time?”

Sam tells her that would be great and gives her his cell number. “Call me with anything,” he says, “no matter how insignificant it seems.”

When they’re back in the truck Henri gives Sam a long appraising look. “You did good with Toni,” he says. “She was scared of you to begin with, but you made her feel safe. We’ve had trouble with Hunters, before, see.”

“Trouble?”

Henri nods. “Lotta Hunters seem to take the view that if it ain’t ‘natural’ they kill it. We’ve had Horses murdered for no better reason than some Hunter didn’t like the fact that they willingly let a spirit possess them.”

Sam’s lips thin. Dean can be slow to give monsters the benefit of the doubt, as witnessed in the very last case they worked. Sam knows that Dean has killed monsters just for being what they are, with no proof they’re actually killing people; after all, it’s what their dad taught them. Thankfully, he’s become more willing to accept that there are grey areas, to consider what a creature _does_, not just what they _are_, although they still sometimes disagree. But to kill _people_—just for allowing possession? Henri is right. That’s straight up murder, not even a grey area.

“You’re different than Hunters we’ve known before,” Henri continues. “You know it ain’t all black and white. Which is just as well, given your own circumstances.”

Sam looks at Henri searchingly, wonders if the vodouisant knows just how often Sam can relate to the monster they’re Hunting.

“When you’re ready, ask me how,” Henri says cryptically. “I’ll tell you. Now, you’re the Hunter here, what do we do next?”

Dean only has to wait in the hospital parking lot for about fifteen minutes before Gina turns up. She asks where Sam is and nods thoughtfully when Dean tells her that he’s gone with Henri to pursue other avenues of enquiry.

“_Other avenues of enquiry_?” Gina raises an eyebrow. “Sounding very professional there, Dean.”

Dean grins at her. “That’s Officer Dean Wyman to you,” he says, flashing his fake Animal Control badge at her. 

Gina’s eyes widen. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that.”

At the Ochsner Hospital, Gina introduces Dean by name only and he steps in smoothly and flashes the woman at the reception desk his Animal Control badge, with a small, easy smile. Gina glowers at him and then turns to Monique, who she obviously knows well, given the amount of small talk about Book Club and Saturday Night Drinks at the _Chat Noir_ that follows.

Finally, Gina gets around to posing the questions they’ve come here to ask.

“Monique, did you hear about the body we recovered down in Delacroix?” Gina asks.

Monique nods. “Mauled by dogs? Poor woman.”

Gina clucks her tongue and shakes her head. “Does the hospital have any records of other, less fatal, animal attacks? Maybe someone who came in because they got bit? It could help us track down these mutts before they kill again.”

Monique does a search on the hospital database. Her tongue pokes out of her mouth as she scrolls. “Okay. Animal bites. Hmm. Got a woman got bit by her cat,” she pulls a face. “Nasty things cat bites. She’s been hooked up to an antibiotic drip for the last couple days. Oh, and Deputy Dodd got bit on the arm by that alligator in the swimming pool last week; there was a write-up about it in the local paper,” she clucks her tongue. “Silly boy. Should’ve waited for Animal Control, am I right?” she looks at Dean.

“Absolutely,” he agrees. “People—even police officers—should always leave dangerous creatures to the professionals.”

Gina’s glare is practically burning a hole in the side of his head.

Monique nods in agreement. “You’re just looking for dog attacks though, right?”

Dean bites at his bottom lip. He’s only ever heard of werewolves, never _werecats_ or _werealligators_. But then a few months ago he’d never heard of angels, so what the hell does he know, really? God, he sure hopes _werealligators_ aren’t actually a thing.

Gina clears her throat.

“Uh, yeah,” he answers Monique. “Dogs. Big ones.”

Monique purses her lips. “Only ‘dog attack’ I can find is a four-year-old boy who got bit on the leg by his overzealous puppy two months ago.”

Gina raises an eyebrow at Dean, who shakes his head.

“Other than that,” Monique says apologetically. And then she stops and frowns at the screen. “Huh.”

“What is it?” Gina asks.

“A note from one of our ER doctors. It came up right at the end of the search, because the case wasn’t written up as a dog bite. The patient came in two nights ago, claimed he’d injured his arm in a fishing accident, but Doctor Barker documented that it looked more like a dog bite.”

The dates work. Two nights ago was the third and final night of the full moon and the day after Marie’s body was discovered. And if the victim knew he’d been bitten by a werewolf, it could explain why he lied about it.

“That could be something,” Dean says.

Gina leans against the reception desk, her eyes wide and imploring. “We’re gonna need the patient’s details, Monique,” she says. “If he was lying about it being a dog bite, could be he’s scared. Could be he was threatened by the dog’s owner. And if it’s the same dog, it’s a killer. We don’t want it to kill again. There’s a public interest here, Monique.”

Monique consults her boss and Gina and Dean go to the hospital cafeteria for a coffee while they wait for Monique’s boss to clear disclosure of the patient’s details with the hospital’s Legal department. Dean isn’t too worried. If Legal won’t release the details, he’ll just get Sammy to hack the hospital’s computer system.

Fortunately, Legal agree that public interest should take precedence over patient confidentiality and by late afternoon Dean and Gina are headed out to speak with Luis Delpierre, who lives down in Hopedale. 

Hopedale’s a fishing community and it was absolutely devastated by Katrina. Still, the fisher-folk have rebuilt, albeit in smaller numbers than before, and it’s an undeniably beautiful area of the world, despite the plethora of trailers, parked on lots where uninsured locals can’t afford to rebuild.

Luis Delpierre is fisherman from a long line of fisherman and he speaks with a Cajun accent so thick that Dean has trouble understanding him, although Gina seems to do just fine.

Luis owns a private oyster bed, and there’s a big pile of crab traps stacked beside his trailer. In between peak crab season and peak oyster season he supplements his income doing private boat charters, and occasionally he’ll sign on as a deckhand for a small shrimp boat too. 

He sees Dean looking at the photo hanging crooked on the wall—a dark haired woman with a tired smile and two small girls—and answers the unasked question.

“My wife. She left after Katrina. Took the girls to stay at her sister’s in Gretna. We ain’t divorced, still see each other every so often. She just didn’t want to raise the girls in a trailer.”

Dean can see her point. It feels like a sauna in the trailer and the ceiling fan doesn’t do more than stir the humid air around. 

“It’s been tough,” Luis adds. “Them storms, they whipped up a lot of sediment, all but destroyed a lot of the oyster beds, but it’s coming good again now. I can’t see myself being able to rebuild the house any time soon, but, you know, I reckon it won’t be long until I start making a decent living again.”

“I sure hope so,” Gina says warmly. “Say, what happened to your arm? A ‘gator didn’t go after you, did it?”

“Fishing accident,” Luis says promptly.

Gina is suddenly all police detective. “I’m gonna need exact details,” she says, taking a pen and paper out of her purse and looking at Luis expectantly.

Luis fumbles through an explanation about getting smacked in the arm by a swinging crab trap when he was winching it up.

“Not really peak season for crab, is it?” Gina says.

Luis shrugs. “Blue crab ain’t never outta season. People always want their gumbo.”

Gina asks a few more pointed questions, trying to poke holes in Luis’s story, but he sticks to it, stonewalling stoically until Dean’s patience wears out.

“Okay, Luis, cut the crap,” he says finally. “We know you got bit by a dog. Same dog that tore Marie Martinez’s heart out. We just need to know where it happened.”

Luis pales visibly.

“And you gotta know, man,” Dean closes in for the kill, giving Luis a look that he perfected under Alastair’s tutelage, “that _dog_—what it’s bite can do to a guy—that ain’t something you want around your wife and girls.”

“No, no, he promised…” Luis stops himself abruptly.

Dean leans in even closer, eyes narrowed, and Luis pulls away from him, looking deeply afraid.

“You’re gonna tell me _everything_, Luis,” Dean says softly.

Marie’s work colleagues at both The Last Stop Food Mart and the Delacroix Lodge are a bust. Despite Sam’s expert questioning, none of them mention anything about being roofied lately, or waking up naked somewhere with no idea how they got there. No one has been bitten by a dog lately, or knows anyone who got bitten by a dog lately, and the weirdest thing that’s happened to any of them in recent times is hearing the news of Marie’s death.

Marie, they all report, was a reserved woman; always polite, but not exactly a Chatty Cathy. A few tell him in hushed tones that Marie was ‘into that vodou nonsense.’ And a few of them clearly know just exactly who—or at least _what_—Henri is, if their half-fearful, half-reverential looks are anything to go by.

One other thing her former workmates all agree on is that Marie was passionate about environmental issues and went to a lot of meetings for some group that she was in.

“Something to do with protecting the wetlands,” Sylvie, a room service maid down at Delacroix Lodge tells them, as she puffs her way rapidly through a cigarette on her unexpected break to speak with Animal Control.

“The day before she died, Marie was talking about hiring a boat to take her out to check on some nests or other down near Black Bay. Maybe she came across something out in the wetlands that followed her home?”

Back in Henri’s truck, the vodouisant waits patiently while Sam thinks.

“Something out in the marshes following her home…could be something,” Sam says finally. “Maybe her wetlands group knows who she hired to take her out? What were they called again?”

“The Louisiana Wetlands and Coastal Protection Society,” Henri says promptly. “Good people. They got an office in the Lower Ninth Ward.”

Henri switches on the radio as they drive along highway 46, back toward the city. The station plays a lot of weather reports, with a particular emphasis on wind speed and direction, tides and water conditions, and reminders about the various fishing regulations currently in place. The public service updates are interspersed with commercials for local businesses, Louis Armstrong, Lonnie Johnson, Ella Fitzgerald and Harry Connick Junior. The station wouldn’t have been Dean’s pick, Sam thinks with a small smile, but he wouldn’t hate it either; he doesn’t mind a bit of blues every now and then. After all, his joint-favorite song was first recorded by Robert Johnson. 

“Can I ask a question?” Sam says.

“Apparently you can,” Henri replies dryly and Sam huffs and turns his head to look out the window, fingers tapping on his thigh.

“Sorry,” Henri says. “I’m being an ass. Ask away.”

Sam turns back to him. “What’s it like?” he asks. “Being ridden by a spirit?”

Henri is silent for a long moment. “It’s kinda hard to explain,” he says finally. “There’s a feeling of incredible _power_ that a person has to _experience_ to really understand.”

Sam nods. A supernatural rush of power is something he understands all too well.

He catches Henri looking at him knowingly and flushes.

“When your loa, you know,” he touches his own forehead with two fingers, “did you see anything?”

Henri nods. “Everything he saw.”

Sam’s heart sinks. “So you know…?”

Henri raises an eyebrow and Sam’s lips thin as he realizes that Henri is going to make him say it.

“You know about the demon blood?”

He really means his drinking of it, not the fact of it in his blood.

Henri nods. “I know Azazel dripped it into your mouth when you was a baby. And I know about your demon girlfriend; the one you been sharing all sorts of bodily fluids with.”

Sam flushes again, the shame within him spiking high.

“Oh chile,” Sam can tell by the deep, rich voice, the sudden scent of rum and tobacco, and the change in body language that he’s no longer speaking with Henri. “You ain’t got nothin’ to be ashamed of. You been manipulated by beings with several millennia of experience in manipulation.”

Sam huffs. “I’ve been telling myself that the power lets me help people; lets me save them. But if I’m honest with myself,” Sam swallows and forces himself to meet Henri’s eyes, “I like it,” he whispers. “I like the power. The creatures we fight, they’re so much stronger than us. Feels like having this power evens the playing field a little. But then…I wonder…do I just like the power?”

“Having power ain’t the issue,” Papa Legba says. “It’s what you do with it that counts. And so far, you been using yours to do good.”

Sam wants to believe him. But then he wanted to believe Ruby too.

“Can I speak to Henri again?” he asks.

And Papa Legba smiles and nods and then Henri’s peering at him out of eyes suddenly brighter than they were before.

“I was possessed once,” Sam says abruptly. “A couple years back.”

Henri’s eyes slide back to the road. “By a demon,” he says. “We saw.”

Sam takes a deep shuddering breath. “It was like being a puppet. I wasn’t awake for all of it, but she made me watch while my own two hands killed another hunter. Being possessed by Lucifer…I’m too…too scared to even think about it.”

Sam leans his head against the side window and breathes through Henri’s silence.

“Ain’t like that with loa,” Henri says finally. “We invite them in and sure, we hand over the reins during ceremony. Other times too. But we can always take them back,” he pauses. “There are some loa—Black Magic loa—who can twist things: possess without an explicit invitation; outstay their welcome. But any _Mambo_, _Houngan_ or _Bokor_ can throw them out easy enough. Any strong enough vodouisant could. You probably could.”

“Me?”

Henri shrugs. “You’re powerful, Sam.”

Sam scoffs. “The poison in me is powerful.”

Henri shakes his head. “You were created to host an archangel. Every molecule of your being is filled with power. The loa are attracted to you like moths to a flame.” 

Sam snorts softly.

“Oh Sam,” Henri says. “They don’t want to own you; they don’t see you as prime real estate. They want…symbiosis. They want to form a partnership.”

Sam’s eyebrows reach his hairline. This, from the guy who’s loa was just talking about ancient beings, skilled in manipulation.

Henri sighs. “They all arguing about who should get to make the approach. If one of them asks, you should say yes. Babette and I can help you. We can stand guard; make sure whoever it is leaves when you say so. But hand to heart, Sam. That won’t be an issue.”

Sam doesn’t reply and Henri doesn’t seem to expect him to. He simply turns up the music and the remainder of the journey into the Lower North Ward is accompanied by nothing but Ella’s pitch-perfect soulful crooning.

\--

Cecile Herbert is fielding enquires at the front desk of the The Louisiana Wetlands and Coastal Protection Society.

“Please, call me Sissy,” she says when Sam flashes his badge and introduces himself, “that’s what everybody calls me.”

She turns to Henri. “_Houngan_,” she says, inclining her head respectfully.

Sissy turns the _open_ sign on the front door to _closed_ and then directs them to a small conference room and bids them sit down, before making a pot of strong coffee, flavored with New Orleans signature chicory. She pulls a jar of cookies out of a cupboard and when they’re all settled, she asks how she can help them.

Henri reaches out and puts a hand on Sissy’s arm before Sam can even open his mouth. “You hear anything from Simbi lately?” he asks.

Sissy shakes her head. “No. I did a ceremony, tried to call him to me, but he didn’t honor me with his presence.”

Henri squeezes her arm comfortingly. “Ain’t no one hearing from him right now. _Maman_ is worried.”

Sam’s head comes up at that. Apparently the vodouisants haven’t been telling him and Dean everything. Apparently, not only is Marie dead, her rider is missing too.

“Is that usual?” he asks sharply.

Henri inclines his head, considering Sam slowly. “No,” he says finally. “The loa, they have their regular _cheval, _but they can choose to honor anyone who petitions them. Some of us have one loa who sticks with us a lot of the time. Like me and Papa. Babette,” Henri chuckles. “She like grand central station. Loa popping in and out all the time. But if she petitions, they come. With one or two exceptions.”

Sam’s lips thin. “So you’re actually working a different case to me and Dean. You’re looking for Simbi.”

Henri frowns. “No,” he says. “Yes, we’re looking for Simbi. But Marie was one of ours. We want to find her killer too. Seemed like working with you would expand our resources.”

Sissy shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “What do you need from me? How can I help?”

Sam waits to see if Henri has anything to say, before asking Sissy if she knows who Marie hired to take her through the wetlands, but she doesn’t know. She does, however, know a lot more about what Marie was investigating.

Apparently a corporate conglomerate wants to build a crude oil export terminal in the Long Bay/California Bay area to the west of Port Sulphur. The Plaquemines Parish Office of Coastal Zone Management is firmly behind the project and rumor has it that the Office’s Director, Maurice Chenier, has been offered a cushy corporate job once his term in government ends, if he pushes the approvals through.

“The environmental impact studies were faked,” Sissy says hotly. “Brown pelicans nearly went extinct, you know, and they were just starting to return to the area to nest when Katrina hit and destroyed everything. Bringing them back from the brink; it was a great result for environmentalists. And then…bang. Katrina. The pelicans have literally just started coming back again now…and then…this! There’d be a lot of dredging. The sediment that would get thrown up would stop the pelicans from wanting to nest there. And it’d destroy the oyster beds again too. But some people, they only think with their own wallets!”

And all of that sounds like a decent motive for murder, but it doesn’t have anything to do with werewolves. Sam turns to say as much to Henri, but his voice dies at the look of abject fury on the man’s face.

“Maurice Chenier is a vodouisant,” Henri’s eyes are as hard as steel. “And he’s ridden by Marinette.”

Sissy gasps and Sam frowns. “I get the feeling I’m missing something here.”

Henri’s mouth is a taut line. “Marinette is…difficult. She’s a loa of power and violence. Some say she’s evil. I don’t know about that; but she’s certainly dangerous, cruel, vicious and unpredictable. She’s also the matron and protector of werewolves.”

_Smoke on the water_ blares from Dean’s pocket.

“Sammy?”

“Hey, Dean. We think we got a good lead. Guy by the name of Maurice—”

“Chenier, yeah,” Dean interrupts. “Dude’s a werewolf.”

There’s a sulky silence on the other end of the line and Dean grins. Sam sure does hate it when he’s not the smartest guy in the room.

“How did you find that out?” his little brother asks.

Dean explains about Luis Delpierre and Marie’s mission into the Plaquemines Bayous for The Louisiana Wetlands and Coastal Protection Society.

“Luis said there were a ton of pelican nests out there and that somebody had already roped off the area where they’re planning to build the oil export terminal, even though they don’t have planning approval yet. He said there are nests and several oyster beds in the roped off area. Marie took photographs and she was sure that she had enough evidence that the Society could make a legal challenge on environment impact grounds.”

“Except she got killed that night,” Sam says.

“Yeah. And the next night, Luis got attacked and bit by a giant wolf, which then morphed into a man, who introduced himself as Maurice Chenier.”

Chenier told Luis that he was going to turn into a monster every time there was a full moon, but that if he forgot what he saw out in the bayou, then Chenier would give him an amulet that would stop him from changing. Luis agreed.

“I got no idea whether this amulet’s kosher or not,” Dean concludes.

“Chenier’s the Director of the Plaquemines Office of Coast Management,” Sam says. “According to Henri, he’s also a vodouisant.”

“Huh,” Dean runs a hand across his jaw.

“And get this…he’s ridden by some hardcore loa of power and violence called Marinette, who also happens to be, like, the patron saint of werewolves.”

“Huh,” Dean says again. “So this amulet could be the real deal? What does Henri think?”

There’s a pause and some background mumbling and then Sam says, “Henri says there’s a _bokor_ serving Marinette who could definitely pull that off.”

There’s another pause and then Sam says, “Where are you now?”

“On Royal Street in the French Quarter. Parked outside the police precinct. Gina’s inside getting all the information she can on Maurice Chenier and trying to come up with grounds for a warrant that don’t include the phrase, ‘the dude’s a werewolf’.”

“Okay, wait there,” Sam says a moment later. “We’re on our way.”

Henri’s Silverado pulls in behind Dean less than ten minutes later. Both Sam and Henri get out the car and Dean opens his own door and joins them on the sidewalk outside the police precinct.

Henri looks Dean up and down, eyes flashing and swirling and Dean swallows, because that is not Henri; he’s possessed.

Dean takes a deep breath and inhales the scent of rum and tobacco, with a hint, too, of something sweet, maybe chocolate. Henri smiles and there’s something almost grandfatherly about it.

“Y’all follow me now,” Henri..or…what was it he told Sam to call him earlier that day?—_Papa?_—says. 

Dean and Sam walk behind Papa—even his walk is different, Dean thinks; like an old man with a limp—but the sheer power that is radiating from him is truly staggering.

The trio enters the police precinct and everybody just…stops. All eyes are on Henri and not a single person moves to intercept them as they make their way into the Chief’s office.

Even Gina sits frozen with her phone in her hand.

“Chief Olsson,” Henri says with a small bow to the man sitting behind the mahogany desk.

“_Houngan_ Henri,” Chief Olsson says.

Dean thinks his voice sounds a little shaky.

“_Mambo_ Babette would be very grateful if you would do her the honor of a visit.”

The chief nods and bites at his lip. “Of course,” he says and stands up.

The four of them make their way back through the precinct and everybody is still immobilized, by what Dean doesn’t know. Is Henri—or the loa possessing him—doing it? Or is Henri simply such an important figure in New Orleans that no-one is game to interfere?

Henri stops abruptly beside Gina’s desk. He turns to Sam. “Chief Olsson will ride with me. You will ride with your brother,” he turns back to Gina. “You will follow in your own car.”

Back behind the wheel of his baby, Dean feels as if some sort of compulsion has been lifted from him.

“What the hell, Sam?” he says, glaring at his brother.

Sam frowns. “What?” 

“You couldn’t feel that? I thought you were supposed to be the _sensitive_ one?”

Sam’s still frowning. “You mean the power that was radiating from Henri when he let Papa Legba take the reins? Yeah, I felt that. It was awesome.”

Dean snorts. “He was controlling all of us! You think a whole precinct of cops are really just gonna let some randoms waltz into the Chief’s office unopposed? And you and me? We just followed at his heels like…like…Mary’s little lambs!”

Sam’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really, Dean?”

“And just now, when we got into the car? You telling me you didn’t feel something…snap? Like suddenly we were our own people again?”

“Nope,” Sam shakes his head.

Dean sighs and pulls out into the traffic, falling in behind Henri and the Chief.

He watches in his rear vision mirror as Gina pulls out behind him. See? They’re still doing exactly what they were told to!

“We’re being manipulated,” he mutters. “How do we know we can trust these loa? They’re spirits, right? So Henri being _ridden_, it’s like ghost possession. They should” he waves a hand. “Move toward the light.”

Sam frowns. “The Ioa aren’t ghosts, Dean. They’re intermediaries between God and humanity.”

Dean sighs again. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised the loa’s mind control powers don’t work on you. That demon blood seems to make you immune to a lot more stuff than us standard issue humans.”

Sam side-eyes him. “What’s that supposed to mean, Dean?”

Dean grips the steering wheel tightly and clenches his jaw.

Sam huffs. “Great. So you’re back to thinking I’m a freak who should be hunted. Awesome.”

Dean forces himself to relax. Takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, man,” he says. “It’s just…all this psychic crap scares the hell out of me.”

“And when you get scared, you lash out,” Sam’s eyes are hard. “I’m not gonna be your punching bag, Dean. You can’t just keep treating me like shit because you can’t handle the truth.”

“Truth?” Dean frowns. “What truth?”

“That I’m _not_ ‘standard human issue’. That I have demon blood running through my veins. That I was purpose built as a vessel for Lucifer. I have to live with this, Dean. It’s in _me_. I _have_ to live it. I don’t have a choice. But you do. And if you can’t handle what I am, then maybe you’re better off leaving me with people who can.”

Dean swallows. “What? These people? You wanna start messing with vodou now? Really?”

Sam shrugs and stares out the side window.

Dean glances at Sam’s profile. His little brother looks miserable.

Henri pulls into the driveway of his house and Dean goes and parks around the corner. For a moment he and Sam just sit in the car, not speaking, and then Dean takes a hand off the steering wheel and rubs it across the back of his neck.

“I’m not gonna leave you, Sammy. You’re my brother. And for better or worse, we’re in this together.”

Sam snorts. And okay, yeah, he did just make them sound like a married couple.

“I just,” Dean continues. “I…I don’t know how to look out for you right now. All this psychic stuff? I’m so far out of my depth.”

“Maybe,” Sam says, his tone gentle, “it’s my turn to look out for you?”

Gina raps on the window, making them both jump. She grins and asks them if they’re planning on getting out the car any time soon, so they stow their brotherly crap and slam their doors shut in perfect synchronicity and make their way up the front steps of the house.

This time Sam doesn’t seem to have a problem with it and he’s able to walk through the front door too.

Henri, Babette and the Chief of police are waiting for them just inside the door and Babette beams.

“I adjusted the wards,” she says. “Come on through now.”

They all go and sit in the drawing room and privately, Dean thinks the décor could give some of the motels they’ve stayed in a run for their money. The walls are a pale eggshell blue, the floors a dark-grained hardwood, with a big Persian rug in various shades of red and blue laid down beneath a Queen Anne style sofa and wingback side chairs, all in a buttoned-down teal brocade. There’s a big black wrought iron fire place, with a vintage mirror over the mantel, a black French provincial chandelier, and the curtains are rose-colored Chantilly lace—and Dean scrunches his nose and silently curses the Martha Stewart Home Décor marathon he was too lazy to turn off for the fact that he actually knows all those decorator terms.

Henri and Babette explain to the Chief of Police that there’s a black magic aspect to Marie’s death and they explain Maurice Chenier’s involvement in a way, Dean notes, that doesn’t include the phrase ‘the dude’s a werewolf’, instead revealing that he’s a vodouisant who serves Marinette. They ask for a little leeway to sort it out within the community and the Chief seems happy enough to grant that leeway, which surprises Dean.

_Maman_ Babette tells him, after the man himself has left, that Chief Olsson’s mama is a vodouisant and that although he’s not a practitioner himself, he knows enough to be wary. 

“He ain’t a follower,” she says, “but he _believes_. Just like our Gina here.”

Gina clears her throat and shift uncomfortably in her seat. “Do you want me to go too, _Maman_?” she asks.

“No sugar,” _Maman_ Babette says. “We trust you to help with this. And you ain’t one of ours, so ain’t no one gonna say you got divided loyalties.”

“All right,” Dean claps his hands. “How we gonna do this?”

“And what’s going on with Simbi?” Sam asks.

Which is how Dean learns that they don’t just need to gank a werewolf, they also need to find a missing vodou spirit.

Dean takes another beignet out of the box and shoves it into his mouth, brushes his fingers on his thigh. His mouth is ringed with sugar and he chews with his mouth open and Sam digs his nails into his own thighs to keep his hands from clawing into fists. He’s honestly not sure sometimes whether Dean eats like a pig just to mess with him or because he gets so lost in the hedonistic pleasure of food that he completely forgets that table manners are even a thing.

On the upside, having his mouth stuffed with sweet pastry means that Dean can’t keep up with the grumbling he’s been doing, pretty much the entire time they’ve been sitting in the car. They’re parked a little way up the road from Maurice Chenier’s property near Lake Marseille, waiting for him to get home from work. The sun is just starting to set and the sky is painted in several hues of orange and pink. It’s pretty and the juxtaposition between the tranquillity of the night and the confrontation over black magic hoodoo that is about to happen is unsettling.

Chenier has a big place on a big block, set well back from the street, and his yard backs onto a large forested area that stretches all the way to the lake. 

Great privacy for a werewolf, Sam thinks cynically, and not too bad of a commute to work either.

Dean swallows the last of his beignet and casts a sideways glance Sam’s way.

He clears his throat. “I’m just sayin’, is all,” he says. “The family business is saving _people_\--”

“I know,” Sam interrupts. “You’ve been _just saying_ it for the last fifteen minutes. And like I’ve been telling you, if a powerful vodou spirit has been harnessed by a powerful black magic _bokor_, we could _save_ a lot of _people_ by helping deal with that.”

“We don’t _know_ that’s what’s going on,” Dean says mulishly. “That’s just _Maman_ Babette’s theory.”

“Sure. But look on the bright side. At least you get to kill a werewolf, right?”

Dean does brighten at that. “Right,” he says. “And if we can help the vodouisants too, I guess it’s a win/win. 

A black Dodge Power wagon rumbles down the road and pulls into the driveway of Chenier’s property and a moment later _Maman_ Babette’s voice comes through Sam’s earpiece, provided courtesy of Gina and her connections at the NOPD.

“Showtime, boys,” _Maman_ says, her voice low and smoke-dark.

Maurice Chenier has very little security on his property. There’s a tall wrought iron fence with a sliding main gate, but there’s also a pedestrian side gate that’s not locked and Sam and Dean walk through it easy as pie.

Of course, it’s only easy as pie because _Maman_ Babette already altered all of Chenier’s extensive warding to let them in. She reassures them that Chenier won’t have a clue the warding’s been tampered with, because she’s just _that_ good. She tutted the whole time she was working on it too, grumbling about black magic and wondering aloud just exactly how deep into Hoodoo Chenier had gotten himself.

Dean knocks on the front door and when Chenier opens it, Dean shakes the metal tin in his hand and pastes on his most annoying grin.

“Good evening, Sir,” he says. “We’re collecting for the Coastal Wilderness Fund, can you spare a few dollars.”

“No,” Chenier says. “Go away.”

He tries to shut the door, but Dean gets his foot in it. “Really? Aren’t you some big wig in coastal management for the government? Seems like it’s the sort of thing you oughta care about.”

Chenier’s eyes narrow. “I give enough already. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Dean glances at Sam. “Anything?”

Sam shakes his head. “Mr Chenier,” he says, deciding to throw caution to the wind and go in hard. “How much do you know about werewolves?”

And _there_ it is. Chenier’s eyes swirl with red and the smell of bonfire smoke suddenly seems to surround him. 

It’s Sam’s cue to take the small vial that _Maman_ Babette gave him out of his jacket pocket, uncap it and throw the contents on Chenier. 

Chenier’s nostrils flare and then he goes down like a puppet with its strings cut.

“She’s down,” Sam says for the benefit of the others, waiting out in their respective cars.

Dean frowns and looks down at Chenier.

“Marinette,” Sam clarifies.

_Maman_ Babette, Henri and Gina walk in a moment later.

“Get him up,” _Maman_ says and Sam and Dean haul Chenier up and drag him over to the sofa in his living room.

_Maman_ Babette stands over him, tall and proud. “Oh chile,” she says, and Sam standing beside her breathes in frankincense and the coppery tang of fresh blood. “What you got yourself caught up in?” she pauses, half turns. “Henri? You ready, boyo?”

Henri has been messing around with Chenier’s fireplace and he approaches now with a hot branding iron. He opens Chenier’s shirt to reveal a large veve tattooed on his chest. Henri places the brand right in the center of it and Henri’s skin sizzles and smokes, but the man himself remains steadfastly unconscious.

_Maman_ Babette lays a maternal hand on Chenier’s forehead and he stirs and sits up. His eyes widen.

“_Maman_ _cherie_,” he says reverently. “_Maitresse_ Dantor.”

And then he winces and looks down at his chest. When he raises his head his eyes are full of horror.

“_Maman_,” he says. “What have you done?”

“Don’t you _maman_ me, boy,” she growls. “You in so much trouble.”

Sam raises a questioning eyebrow in Henri’s direction.

“She being ridden by Erzulie Dantor.” Henri says.

“You killed one of Simbi’s,” Erzulie Dantor tells Chenier. “Gonna be a reckoning, boy.”

Chenier pales, but lifts his chin stubbornly.

“The Louisiana coast is beyond saving,” he says. “Simbi won’t listen. His followers won’t listen. Those pain in the ass environmentalists…they don’t get it. The whole Mississippi Delta is sinking. We’re losing our coastline at a rate of 16 square miles per year. That’s one football field every hour! And there’s nothing we can do to stop it. This project, though, it’s gonna create _jobs_. Jobs that we need, badly.”

Dean snorts. “Including a nice cushy one for you.”

Chenier glares at him.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “We’ve all heard the rumors. You’re a selfish dick. This project is gonna destroy the oyster beds more effectively than Katrina did. Sure you might create a few short term jobs building it, but you’re gonna complete fuck the whole fishing industry. Think of all _those_ jobs.”

Chenier shrugs. “Those jobs aren’t sustainable anyway,” he turns back to Babette and Henri. “I don’t suppose I can persuade you to simply walk away from this?”

Babette just stares at him.

Chenier sighs. “I guess not.”

He makes a quick hand gesture and a heartbeat later then room is filled with the sound of deep, dangerous growling.

Sam turns very slowly and takes in the sight of four werewolves standing in the living room doorway.

“Werewolves,” he says to Dean.

His brother nods. “Ain’t even a full moon.”

Dean looks down at Chenier. “How are you doing this?”

Chenier smirks. “Marinette is the matron of werewolves and she’s always been willing to work with _bokors_ and to fulfil our, shall we say, less than ethical requests.”

Sam pulls his Taurus from the back of his jeans. “Are they immune to silver bullets?” he asks.

Chenier throws himself at Sam and Dean intercepts him, and the two of them fall to the ground grappling.

Babette and Henri have their arms outstretched, straining to keep the werewolves at bay and Sam and Gina are pointing their silver-loaded guns at the creatures, who are struggling to move forward.

“Don’t shoot unless you have to,” Henri says. “We can still save them.”

And then there’s a shout and a growl from the ground at Sam’s feet and Chenier’s arms are lengthening, his fingers growing claws, and Sam doesn’t even think, not with his brother’s neck mere inches away from suddenly lethal looking incisors, he just shoots.

Chenier morphs back into human form as he dies and the rest of the werewolves all howl.

“Dean?” Sam calls.

“I’m okay, Sammy,” Dean gasps, shoving Chenier’s body off of himself.

And then he goes rigid; his back arches and his arms wave about like he’s having some kind of seizure.

“Dean!” Sam shouts, his voice hoarse. 

Dean is suddenly back on his feet, his eyes flashing red.

“Marinette,” Sam snarls.

_Maman_ Babette materializes at his side. “He invite you in, Sister?”

Dean’s lips turn up in a brazen smile that looks wrong on his face. “In a way,” Marinette says coyly, through Dean’s mouth. “Born in fire, this one. Dangerous and hostile. Such a strong need for revenge.”

Behind Sam, gunfire sounds, followed by pained yelping. The air between _Maman_ Babette—or Erzulie Dantor—and Marinette crackles with electricity and Sam couldn’t move even if he wanted to.

“I will force you out and bind you,” Erzulie Dantor promises Marinette.

Marinette laughs. “You and whose army? _Papa_ is busy keeping my werewolves at bay. It’s just you and me, Sister.”

_Sam Winchester_, a deep voice, rich and melodious, sounds inside Sam’s head. _I can help, if you let me in._

_Who are you?_ Sam asks.

_They call me Ogun Ferraille. _

_You’re a warrior loa, right?_

A deep chuckle resonates inside Sam’s mind.

_Chile, I’m _the_ warrior loa. And if you let me, I’ll help you fight Marinette, save your brother. I gotta warn you, though. Without a veve drawn, my presence could hurt you. Not enough to do real damage, but enough to really hurt. You gotta be sure it’s worth it. What do you say?_

Sam says yes.

Henri is right. There really is no way to describe the rush of power as the spirit enters his body and takes up residence right beside his soul. Ogun settles in in a way that’s comfortable and organic and Sam doesn’t feel overwhelmed by him; he feels complemented.

_Why thank you, Sam_, Ogun says. _You fit me good too_. _You mind if I take the reins while we sort out _ma chère cousine_?_

_Be my guest_, Sam says.

It’s nothing like being possessed by Meg. Sam very much feels as if he could take control of his body back at any time. He truly does have a choice here. Confident of that, he settles back to watch things unfold.

With Ogun riding him, Sam is able to see the ghostly figure of a fierce looking black woman superimposed over Dean.

“Army’s here,” Ogun says from Sam’s mouth.

Sam laughs. It sounds so weird, hearing that deep melodic voice come from his own throat.

He feels _Maman_ Babette take his hand.

Marinette’s lips turn down. Sam thinks she looks hurt. Betrayed.

“After all we’ve been through together, you would help her bind me?”

In his mind, Sam sees pictures of bloody warfare, fire, and the ritual slaughter of a black pig.

Ogun sighs. “_Chère_, you been fooled. That one,” he nods at Chenier’s body, “he done throw his lot in with the oppressors. He the one abusing his power.”

Dean’s head turns as Marinette looks down at Chenier.

“He’s devoted,” she says. “He loves me.”

_Maman_ Babette’s head shakes. “No sister,” Erzulie Dantor says. “He loves the power you give him. You should know better than to trust a man like him. Remember Toussaint?”

Marinette snarls. And then runs her hands sensually down Dean’s body. She smiles, sharp and jagged as broken glass. “Maybe I keep this one, make him mine. He a good fit, this boy. Strong. He got hands drippin’ red and a soul filled with fire. He understands me.”

_Enough._ Sam tells Ogun. _Kick her out. Henri said any mambo or houngan or strong enough vodouisant could kick an unwelcome loa out easy enough. We need to do it. Now._

Ogun hesitates. _Ain’t that simple. Marinette is strong. Powerful. Violent. Once she’s out…gonna take a trinity to hold her._

Sam frowns. _Three of you? What about Henri? Can’t he call on Papa? _

_Henri’s busy with the werewolves._ Ogun says dryly and Sam huffs with impatience.

_Gina could just shoot them_, he says, and he _feels_ Ogun’s disappointment deeply.

_Look at the one Gina injured_, Ogun says, turning Sam’s head to look at what is very clearly a teenaged boy writhing on the ground in agony. _They just babies. Probably didn’t have no choice in what befell them. Gonna save them if we can. _

Sam knows that Ogun feels his remorse when forgiveness echoes around him.

Erzulie Dantor is talking to Marinette, telling her about Marie, asking about Simbi.

Dean’s head inclines from time to time in the same way that Sam’s does when he and Ogun are talking and he wonders what Marinette and his brother are saying to each other.

Marinette shakes her head. “Ain’t got no idea what happened to Simbi. Ain’t my doing, nor any o’ mine.”

Sam has been able to feel Ogun’s underlying concern for the missing loa all along, but now his worry spikes and Sam nestles up against his loa, offering comfort and support. He knows what it’s like to lose a brother.

Ogun sniffs. _Marie was his favorite._

_Maybe he’s grieving?_ Sam suggests.

Ogun huffs softly and Sam gets an image of a turquoise-and-silver robed man with messy dark hair sitting on a rock in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by empty whiskey bottles.

It gives Sam an idea.

_I want to try something,_ he says to Ogun. _Can I…take the wheel?_

_Of course. Any time you want, _cheval_._

Sam regains control of his body without fanfare. He recognizes the faint ache behind his eyes and the tension in his shoulders for what it is; what is always has been—the spirits, clamouring around him. He closes his eyes, relaxes completely and calls out to Simbi, acknowledging his loss and begging for his help with Marinette.

_Could be dangerous, Sam. _Ogun warns_. You ain’t in ceremony, you already been mounted out-of-ritual. You ain’t got a veve drawn for summoning and you ain’t got nothing to protect you. Letting one of us mount you was risky enough, but two? Could hurt you badly, boy._

Sam shrugs and keeps calling. A sea breeze blows through the open windows, lace curtains flapping as Simbi is suddenly there, in a swirl of salt water and whiskey.

Sam invites him in and he feels Ogun sigh and make room and it’s suddenly very crowded inside of Sam. He feels stretched thin and Ogun was right; it hurts.

Marinette’s eyes widen.

“No,” she whispers.

She pulls away from Dean—tries to flee in pure spirit form—and Sam feels the loa within him pull themselves from his body, knows they’ve gone to hold Marinette until _Maman_ Babette can do a proper binding ritual.

Sam holds his aching head and breathes through the nausea that hit him the moment the loa left his body. He staggers for a moment and then pulls himself upright. His nose feels wet and he raises his hand, dabs. His fingers come away bloody and he wipes them on his jeans. _Maman_ Babette spares him a single, impressed glance and then she’s back at Henri’s side, forcing the werewolves to change, easy enough now without Marinette’s influence. 

Dean is unconscious on the floor and no amount of desperately calling his name and shaking him will rouse him.

Gina squats down on Dean’s other side, opposite Sam, her phone out.

“_Maman_!” she calls to Babette. “Should I call it in? I think Dean needs medical attention.”

Babette is tending to the boy who Gina wounded, the other former werewolves gathered around her like lost pups.

Babette shakes her head. “Don’t call it in til we gone. We’ll take care of Dean.”

Dean wakes up with a groan and wishes he could remember the party, because _Goddamn_. He hurts in muscles he didn’t even know he had, his head feels like someone tried to pry his skull apart with a crowbar, and the Mojave is probably wetter than his mouth. There’s also a deep-seated ache inside of him and the remembrance of a helpless despair like he hasn’t experienced since Hell.

Hell. Red eyes and fire. Marinette. Dean staggers to his feet in a panic. He’s in someone’s sitting room, was lying on their sofa, and he casts about wildly until his eyes land on someone familiar. The victim’s sister. Toni.

“Dean?” she says cautiously.

He nods. Tries to speak. Fails. He rubs a hand across his throat and Toni huffs and unfolds herself from the armchair. She leaves the room and comes back with a tall glass of water, which Dean drinks gratefully.

He sits back down.

“Where am I?” he asks. “What happened?”

The answer to the first question is: Marie’s house in Delacroix. The answer to the second question is somewhat more complicated.

Dean learns that Henri called Toni and asked her to come and pick Dean up from Chenier’s house and take him to her sister’s place.

“Chenier was dead,” she says, “there was an injured kid there too, and the police were there. Some female detective. LaSalle, I think she said.”

“Was my brother, Sam, there?” Dean asks.

“No one else was there. The detective said the others had gone back to _Maman_ Babette’s place to do a binding ritual.”

She eyes Dean warily. “Is it true you were rough-mounted by Marinette?”

Dean stares at her. “I don’t know what that means,” he says finally. 

“Did she possess you out-of-ritual? Without a summoning veve or any kind of protection?”

Dean nods.

Toni’s expression is a strange combination of horrified and impressed.

“No wonder you were out so long.”

Dean’s eyes meet hers. “How long _was_ I out?”

When Toni tells him that she and her boyfriend Rene collected Dean at about 9.00pm last night and it’s now 10.00am the next day, his heart jumps into his throat.

“What? Where’s Sam?”

But Toni doesn’t know.

Dean tries to get to his feet, but, yeah, that doesn’t go so well, and he falls back onto the sofa, closing his eyes against the way the world is spinning.

“Stay there,” Toni says. “I’ve got a tea that’ll help with that.”

While she’s in the kitchen, Dean calls Sam, but doesn’t get an answer.

Then he calls Gina. She tells him that Sam went with Henri and _Maman_ Babette to help with the binding. She also says they took the werewolf kids with them, except for the one who was shot. He stayed at the scene with her and the body and they staged the whole thing to look like Gina saved him from a black magic ritual, conducted by Chenier. She sounds quite pleased with herself and Dean hates to interrupt, but he’s worried about Sam.

“Yeah, that’s great,” he says. “So this ritual. How long would it take?”

Gina doesn’t know.

Toni comes back with a tea for Dean. It smells like liquorice and a whole bunch of herbs and Dean has never been one for tea anyway, but Toni insists it’ll help him feel better.

She’s right. It does.

He tries Sam again and there’s still no answer.

“Could I borrow your car?” he asks.

Toni frowns. “Yours is out the front. Rene drove it here.”

Dean’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “_What_?”

Toni shrugged. “Figured you’d want it.”

“Thanks,” Dean says with as much grace as he can muster.

Which isn’t much. If there’s so much of a scratch on her… He glowers.

Toni rolls her eyes.

“Go on. Go to your brother,” she hesitates. “He’ll be okay, you know.”

Dean looks at her questioningly.

“He’s strong. Special. _Maman_ told me he got rough-mounted by _two_ loa last night and all he got was a nosebleed and a headache.”

“I take it that’s not normal?”

Toni shakes her head. “But don’t you worry, Dean. _Maman_ will help him; might even make him one of ours.”

“Yeah,” Dean nods. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

** _Now_ **

_October 1st 2008, Delacroix, Louisiana._

Dean’s doing a hundred miles an hour on a dirt road, leaving clouds of dust in his wake and he’s really going to have to take Baby through a car wash after this. He spins the wheel and turns onto the black top of the Delacroix Highway and then he really guns it.

He pulls up out the front of _Maman_ Babette’s half an hour later. Baby’s barely parked and he’s out the car and jogging up the front steps; which apparently haven’t been warded to keep him out. He thinks that’s a good thing. Probably.

Dean wants to throw the door open and storm in demanding answers, but he doesn’t think _Maman_ would take too kindly to that and he has enough self-preservation to err on the cautious side when it comes to dealing with a powerful vodou priestess.

So he knocks. And waits.

Henri answers. He looks exhausted.

“Rough night?” Dean says.

Henri nods and widens the door to let Dean in.

“Where’s Sam?”

The silence stretches.

“With _Maman_,” Henri says after a moment. He leads Dean into the drawing room. “You can wait in here.”

That doesn’t sit well with Dean, but when he tries to follow Henri he only gets as far as the stairs before he’s forcibly halted; can’t even set a foot on the bottom step.

There’s a scream from upstairs. Loud and terrible and clearly Sam and Dean resumes his struggle with the bottom step.

“It’s harder than we thought,” Henri says. “More complicated. But we’ll get there.”

“What’s going on? Are you still trying to bind Marinette?”

Henri shakes his head. “That’s done. This is…something for Sam.”

Dean clenches his jaw and meets Henri’s eyes. “If he doesn’t come out of this _whole_ and…and _healthy_…I’ll kill you,” he promises.

Henri’s smile is tired. “I believe you’ll try.”

He vanishes up the stairs and Dean resumes his struggle to climb them.

He gives up after a while and then professional interest gets the better of him and he tries to figure out how the stairs are warded. There are complicated patterns carved in several places on every step and for one brief, insane moment Dean considers salting and burning the entire staircase, but if he did that, how would he get to the second story?

Sam screams again and Dean swears and punches the wall, which does nothing except hurt his hand, and then he goes back into the drawing room. He helps himself to the bottle of Jim Beam he finds in there and he’s drunk enough to be medicated, but more-or-less sober when _Maman_ Babette walks into the room.

She stops beside Dean, reaches down and picks up the bourbon and pours herself a tumbler, gunning it and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, before dropping to the sofa beside him with a sigh.

“Demon blood,” she says. “What a mess.”

“What did you do?” Dean asks.

Babette grins, wild and unfettered, and Dean suddenly realizes that for all her power, Babette is still a young woman, early thirties at most.

“I separated the demon blood from _his_ blood, drew it to the surface and used it to create a repeating pattern of veves over his entire body; cept for his head, feet, hands and genitals. And then I bound him to Ogun.”

Dean doesn’t like the sound of that.

“Is he okay?” he asks.

Because that’s the most important question. The others can wait.

Babette nods. “Sore and exhausted. But okay.”

Dean picks up his tumbler, takes a sip of amber liquid.

“So what does it mean; that you covered him in veves? That you bound him to Ogun?”

“Means ain’t no demons or angels gettin’ in, no way, no how. Means he linked to Ogun now. Even if they think to kill your brother and start over, which they might, because angels be like that, it won’t work. After all, possession is nine tenths of the law. And he _ours_ now.”

Dean scratches at his chin. “And what does that mean? To be yours?”

Babette shrugs. “As much or as little as he wants it to.”

“Can I see him?”

Babette nods and gets to her feet. Dean follows her out of the drawing room and hesitates at the bottom of the stairs.

Babette grins. “You can come up now,” she says.

And Dean finds that he can.

“You warding is awesome,” he says.

Babette’s grin turns coquettish. “Stick around for a while,” she says, eyes raking over him appreciatively. “I might teach you a thing or two.”

Dean doesn’t think he’s imagining the double entendre and he rubs a hand over the back of his neck and can’t quite meet Babette’s eyes.

She laughs and turns around, leading him up to a small room with two single beds in it. Sam is lying in one of them looking pale, with dark smudges under his eyes.

Dean looks at Babette and she nods. She moves away and lets him have some privacy with his brother.

“Hey, Sammy.”

“Dean,” Sam sounds wary.

“Can I come in?”

Sam nods and Dean goes and perches on the edge of his bed. He can see swirls of black climbing up Sam’s neck like a tattoo.

“You okay?”

Sam nods again. “That was the most agonizing thing I’ve ever experienced, but it’s done now.”

Sam says that he feels better; cleaner. More focused. He asks Dean how he’s feeling after his ordeal with Marinette.

Dean shrugs. “Fine. She’s not so bad, you know. Marinette. She’s got a lot of rage, but her heart’s in the right place. She’s driven by wanting to save people from oppression and she’ll do whatever it takes.”

Sam tilts his head and hmms. “She said you were a good fit.”

“What happened to her? I know you bound her, but what does that mean?”

“We bound her to her effigy for a year and a day. She can’t mount a horse, even in ceremony, for all that time. After that,” he shrugs. “It was hard work, even with seven of us.”

Dean frowns. “Seven?”

Sam counts them off on his fingers. “Me, Henri, Babette, Ogun, Simbi, Papa and ‘Zulie.”

Sam tilts his head again and then smiles softly.

Dean clears his throat. “So. Are we done here? You ready to hit the road?”

Sam looks away and a pit opens up in Dean’s stomach.

“You’re not staying,” he tells his little brother.

“Just for a while,” Sam says. “You’re welcome to stay too. Just while I get a handle on things. After that…we can still hunt. Still travel. But maybe…maybe we could come back here in between?”

He tilts his head again and then rolls his eyes.

“Ogun wants a word,” he says and then his eyes swirl with blackness.

“Pleasure to meet you, Dean,” Sam’s voice is suddenly deep and Southern. “Let your brother have this, boy. He needs it. And he needs you. Besides, this ain’t such a bad place to lay down some roots. Good weather, good food, good music, good bourbon. Good people. Plus,” his eyes turn sly, “’Zulie thinks you hot like the sun. Stick around for a ritual. Could have yourself some real fun.”

There’s a chuckle from the doorway and Dean looks up to see Babette and Henri standing there, looking in fondly.

“He ain’t wrong, sugar,” Babette says. “About any of it. You just wait ‘til you taste Henri’s Jambalaya; it’s the best.”

Dean looks at Sam’s hopeful face. He doesn’t believe for one minute that the angels are just going to accept this, but Ogun’s right; New Orleans isn’t a bad place to take a breather, maybe learn some new tricks. Babette’s warding really is impressive.

“Okay,” Dean says finally. “I’m looking forward to it,”

He doesn’t just mean the Jambalaya.

The End. 

** **


End file.
